


The Warmth and The Cold

by Al_leg0ry



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 00:29:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30114393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Al_leg0ry/pseuds/Al_leg0ry
Summary: An alternative telling of what happened when Tommy finally got out of the Prison. A lot of angst and contains spoilers from the Dream SMP.
Kudos: 7





	The Warmth and The Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> This is a one shot, not a story, but I originally had the idea for this and started writing this before we actually saw Tommy get out of the prison, but I decided to still finish it and post it for anyone who wanted more angst. This is my first story here but I'll probably do more one-shots/ alternate tellings related to the Dream SMP. If you have any feedback, it's always appreciated!
> 
> -Al
> 
> TW: abuse, death, suicidal thoughts, panic attack

As Tommy finally exited the vault, all he felt was exhaustion. Sam told him it had been a month since he had entered the infamous Pandoras Vault. He hadn’t known then that weeks would pass by before he would again set foot on anything besides obsidian. Trapped. Captured. Stuck. Enclosed in an obsidian box for weeks. 

Not able to walk forward more than a few paces before warm lava shone directly before him or obsidian walls halted his pace.  
It had always been so warm, not hot, but just uncomfortably warm. Not enough to sweat unless you got too close to the lava, but the kind of warm you feel when you’re trying to fall asleep in early spring and you haven’t turned a fan on yet. But everything else was so cold. The obsidian wall, the obsidian floor-- obsidian everything. Uncooked, cold potatoes. Cold, chilling water. Cold, so cold. Tommy had been too warm and too cold for a month. They never canceled each other out, just a constant lack of comfortability.  


The breeze brushed past Tommy as he finally reached the outside world, but Tommy barely felt it. He still felt so warm, so cold. Maybe the wind had avoided his touch, knowing that he wasn’t supposed to be here. That he had departed from this place and has somehow returned. That he had been mourned and forgotten by most at this point. Tommy’s place in this world was gone, and the emptiness was attempting to drag him away. His feet dragged as he made his way further and further from the prison, his head hung as he stared at the ground, and his arms were wrapped around his body as he tried to regain any comfort that he could provide himself.  


But Tommy wasn’t himself anymore. He felt like an empty shell of who he once was. He wondered if this is what Ghostbur felt like. Not knowing who you are anymore, but knowing you have a past that has defined you, and not knowing if there’s any future for you.

__________ 

Sam had found Tommy weeks after he had been revived. He had been avoiding Dreams cell after what Dream did. But Sam eventually had to come back. Fulfill his job as Warden, give Dream more food, make sure Dream was still alive. Sam came in the middle of the night; he hadn’t been sleeping much anyways and had hoped he could avoid conversation with Dream if he was barely awake. When he spoke aloud to Dream from the other side of the Lava, telling him he would be dropping in some food, no voice responded.  


He waited a few seconds, seeing if he would eventually respond, but the silence remained. “Dream, I need you to respond,” he barked across the lava.  


“Sam?”  


The voice was barely above a whisper—weak, broken, and pleading. Sam could barely distinguish the voice, but it didn’t sound like Dream. Even if it was Dream, he didn’t deserve to sound so broken. He had murdered a child in cold blood. A child he had tortured and manipulated. A child who had to grow up too fast to survive the world he lived in. A child Sam was meant to protect at all costs. A child Sam had failed.  


But then he heard a laugh. It was short, but Sam recognized the laugh as Dream’s. It was the laugh he heard months ago as he built this Prison and Dream told him of what he had done to Tommy in exile, and it was the laugh he heard weeks ago as he anxiously waited for the lava to stop flowing down, hoping he would find Tommy alive on the other side.  


It was the laugh he heard as he carried Tommy’s limp body out of the obsidian walls.  


Sam’s eyes began to water as he was brought back to the last time he had heard that laugh. But he couldn’t allow Dream to know that. Sam was the Warden—emotionless and cold.  


“Give me an actual response Dream.”  


“Sam? Please,” a haunting voice spoke over the laughter that had arose again.  


“Tommy?”

__________ 

Tommy’s steps faltered as he remembered being let out. He should have been ecstatic, relieved, but he felt nothing. The warmth, the cold, should have passed as he exited the obsidian box, but it still lingered. Sam had been quiet, not being able to take in Tommy’s presence as they walked to the exit. Tommy didn’t mind, he didn’t want to talk.  


Sam offered to walk him home, but Tommy shook his head no. He needed to be alone. He hadn’t been alone for a month., no matter how lonely he had felt.  


More buildings and structures had come into view as he glanced up. He wasn’t able to focus on any one building, they had all blurred together. His eyes zoned in on the moon in the distance. It sat still among the void of the black skies; there were no stars in sight.  


Slowly his feet began to drag forward again but his eyes stayed trained on the moon. He knew no one would be around at this time of night. He could walk alone without worry of being seen. Tommy couldn’t explain to anyone what had happened right now. He didn’t know if would ever be able to. No one would be able to empathize with what had happened to him. How could explain the lasting ache through his body as a result of being beat to death by his manipulator. That the ache never faulted, even in death, even in the void, even in resurrection. No one would understand how mentally drained he was from fighting Dream’s words; Wilbur’s words. Their voices ran rampant through his pounding head. It would be so easy to give in. Allow himself to be manipulated, at least then he could stop thinking, let someone else think for him.  


No one would understand the warmth and the cold. He didn’t understand it himself, even though it had plagued his body for weeks. People would think he was crazy; people probably already thought he was crazy.  


The crazed teenager that never seems to learn his lesson. Tommy always kept pushing. Pressing on the bruise. He always knew when he was doing it. Tommy was smart, he watched the line and often tried to approach but not past it, but sometimes he didn’t care. With some people, he didn’t care where the line was. He knew people thought he just never learned his lesson; justifying his punishment with trying to ‘teach a child an important lesson.’ But Tommy realized early on that even if he did ‘learn his lesson,’ he would still get punished. People here would always find a reason to punish him no matter how much he learned and grew. Tommy wasn’t the same kid that started a war with Dream over some music disks. Even if he hadn’t been ready to grow up from that optimistic kid, he had been forced to.  


War, betrayal, exile, and death. They felt more like the punishment than the cause of it all. Tommy was beginning to feel like maybe it was all deserved. He joined this goddamn server, and everything went to shit. That’s what they all thought. Even if some denied it or told him otherwise, he knew it was his fault. He deserved exile, he deserved to have his country blown up, he deserved to die.  


Maybe he should have stayed dead. Maybe he still could. Sam was the only person on the outside who knew. If he disappeared, maybe Sam would think he hallucinated the whole thing. People have already mourned him; they’ve had time to move on. He would just hurt everyone again if they found out he was alive. They would be sympathetic for a few days, but someone would find a reason to punish him again. He couldn’t be punished again. He couldn’t. If he left, this land, this world, he could stop being punished, and he could stop hurting everyone.  


He glanced away from the moon and saw his dirt house. He felt like he had been walking for so long, but he hadn’t made it very far. He glanced around. Flowers placed along the pathway to his home, statues of him covering the plains, and the bench. He clenched his eyes shut, turning his head away from what was once a safe space for him. His breathing heightened as the memories behind that sacred spot flashed through his mind. The air had been punched out of him and tears were threatening to fall. He quickly wiped away any that appeared before they could fall and looked up to the sky, refusing to let himself break.  


He had hurt Tubbo the most. Even if Tubbo denied it he knew it was true. He always dragged Tubbo into his shit and Tubbo never complained. Tubbo had a good heart. He wasn’t reckless and never tried to push people too far. Tubbo was loved by many here and he could tell that everyone questioned why Tubbo was best friends with someone like Tommy. Someone so easy to hate. He had caused all the hardship on Tubbo; Tubbo deserved better.  


He wonders if everyone would have cared to come save Tommy and Tubbo from Dream in the final disk war if it had just been Tommy. Would anyone have cared enough if Tommy was the only one at risk? Or would they have left him for dead? The final punishment for Tommyinnit. Teach the child one final lesson, and then peace on the server could come once he was gone.  


He knew that Dream knew that. It wouldn’t take long before everyone else came to the same consensus. Rid of Tommy and everyone could finally be happy.  


Tommy’s head dropped back down to the ground as his feat dragged past his home. Maybe he could keep dragging his feet, one by one, and by the time he glanced up again he would be far away from everything. Just him, the warmth, and the cold.  


Soon the ground changed from a wooden path to glass. The once comforting nothingness of the ground became all too much. Destruction laid beneath his feet. His eyes blurred as he continued to drag his feet forward, hoping if kept going, it would come to an end. But it kept going. And going. And going.  


Until his legs gave out from beneath him. Tommy fell to his knees and all he could see was the destruction that he had reaped. All the homes lost to his actions. The safety destroyed because of a war he had started. Tommy was an agent of destruction. Even if he felt like such a different person from the boy who saw his country torn down, no one else would see that. He would be treated the same as he always was. Tommy wasn’t strong enough anymore to hold strong to his own morals. He’d been broken for the final time and couldn’t imagine building himself back up. And maybe that was for the better.  


His eyes glanced to the L’manburg flag below. It was now engulfed in blood vines, but he could still see its colors poking through. Tommy began to shake as tears ran down his face without warning. It’s all too much. Too many memories that he wanted to forget. Why couldn’t he forget it all? Leave it all behind. Why was he still being punished? He just wanted to feel at peace. For once, just a little bit of peace.  


The warmth and the cold spread through him. No longer a dull sensation, it engulfed him in its wrath as he started at that flag. Warm, cold, warm cold. Please, he just wanted it all to stop. Memories of war, betrayal, exile, and death flash through his mind, over and over.  


They weren’t all inherently sad—there were moments of victories. He heard the cries of victory from himself and Tubbo as they got the disks in an enderchest during the first disk war. Tubbo and him had been so happy having defeated the all mighty Dream. Perhaps that was one of the last minutes of pure joy Tommy had felt in a long time. Just him and Tubbo against the world, fighting for some disks that had no real consequence attached to them yet.  


And then he saw Wilbur’s face. He saw his smile. The one that used to reassure him amongst the chaos. The one he would look up to, searching for his approval, the one that could bring him a portion of peace if it was directed at him. But soon as the memories continued to flash. The feeling of comfort attached to that smile faded and uncertainty settled in. The man he had looked up to had changed and loneliness overcame him.  


Tommy tore his eyes away from the flag, his hands flying over his eyes, hoping the darkness would block out the memories. The crying didn’t cease, and the memories continued, they were ingrained in his head and he couldn’t erase them. Memory after memory of everything that had led up to where he was now. How could any of it be considered good if it all led up to the scene before him: a shell of a person he once was sitting above the destruction of the place he had given so much up for, the place that cost him friends and brought upon enemies, the place that took his lives, and the place that had been promised to keep him safe.  


The more Tommy tried to withhold his emotions, the more they came pouring out. He wasn’t sure if he had ever truly cried amongst all he had experienced. But Tommy wasn’t the same person who was able to withhold his emotions. He wasn’t strong enough anymore and all the trauma, heartbreak, loss, and manipulation came crashing down at once. He sobbed as he mourned the person he once was. Even if he had done so much wrong and caused so much damage, did he really deserve this? No one deserved this never-ending warmth and cold that he was now left with. Tommy was shaking and he began to wrap his arms around himself, looking for comfort once again. His knuckles hurt from how tightly he gripped his arms and his head ached from how tightly he had his eyes squeezed shut. He hadn’t noticed that his sobs had become audible as the world around him disappeared.  


All that was left was the warmth and the cold.  


“Tommy?” a voice said from behind. The voice didn’t sound malicious, but all it made Tommy want to do was escape. He was too far in his head to recognize any voice, and the only voice in his head right now was Wilbur’s. His voice was the one that continued to play, attached to the smile that brought so much uncertainty and fear.  


Tommy shook more as he scooted away from the voice, refusing to open his eyes. He was scared he would open his eyes and be met with Wilbur face to face once again. What if Dream had already revived him? Sent him after Tommy to ensure he stayed under Dream’s thumb.  


“Leave me alone, please, just leave me alone,” he sobbed out, hoping Wilbur would have mercy on him. Surely there was some part of the man he once admired left in him. Who would see the broken boy he once called his right hand man and show him some mercy.  


“Tommy, is it really you?” Tommy could hear the voice approaching closer. “Are-are you okay?”  


Memories of Tubbo began to overtake those of Wilbur. These memories made him want to cry more. Cry for the two best friends who had experienced more trauma than anyone they’re age should have. But more so, he wanted to cry for the boy who got dragged into it all by the other. The loving and kind friend who just wanted to please everyone. The one who didn’t deserve the heartbreak the way Tommy deserved it.  


Suddenly, he felt two arms wrap around his body. He flinched as his initial instinct was to pull away, but he immediately sunk into them as he recognized the embrace. He kept crying, hoping it would release some of the endless weight on his heart, and Tubbo held him, rubbing comforting circles on his back.  


“I don’t exactly know what’s going on Tommy, but I’ll stay here with you as long as you need.” Tommy finally opened his eyes and saw the sun rising over the horizon. “I love you Tommy, you’re my best friend.”  


Some of the tears that continued to fall left a stain of hope. Hope that maybe Tommy didn’t deserve all this, and even hope that he didn’t deserve any of it. Because he was Tubbo’s best friend, and there had to be some reason for him to deserve that title. Tommy didn’t know if he was going to be okay or if he would ever get back the boy he once was, but at least it was still him and Tubbo.  


Tommy finally released his arms from around himself and wrapped them around Tubbo, holding on to him as tightly as he could. And as the sun rose higher in the sky, he felt the cool breeze of the morning sun. Neither warm or cold, Tommy felt a sense of comfort that he hadn’t known he would get to feel again.  


“Thank you Tubbo.”


End file.
